Light and Lost Shadows
by JDylah-da-Kylah
Summary: Nightlight encounters a bewildering antithesis by the name of Peter Pan in a moment of deepest suffering - just when Peter's lost his shadow! But, as good as Nightlight means, what can he do when Peter hints at all but luring Wendy away from her mother and her home? And what can he do when he realizes that Tall-Ones might still need night-lights, too?


**Author's Note:** Hello, hello! Alright, first things first: I haven't written fanfiction in, oh, five years, probably, so reviews are much welcome.

I couldn't resist playing with this idea because, as I was reading _The Guardians of Childhood_ , I couldn't help but realize all the parallels between Nightlight and Peter Pan. Or, more accurately, that Nightlight's a more virtuous and wholesome version of Peter. Apart from the whole "eternally young" aspect, both are accompanied by "lights" (Peter's got Tink; Nightlight, the moonbeam); neither fully knows or remembers their parents or their origin; both, to be fair, have a good bit of fun taunting their enemies and generally laughing at danger; both at least have the opportunity to fall in love with (or kiss/be kissed by) a girl. (Wendy, of course, never kisses Peter - I think he even remarks that no one can touch him? - but Nightlight essentially sacrifices the outward essence of who he is – being a nightlight, an eternal being of light – for Katherine's sake.)*

So _then_ I got to wondering: what would happen if the two met? They're essentially antitheses. And even if not virtuous, Peter's kind of a guardian of childhood – in his own way.

Although I realize that, given the time period, this might not be canon in the end (depending on what Joyce does with Nightlight's character in the forthcoming books – and if you look closely at the cover of the upcoming _Jack Frost_ , you might get a hint),** this is set in Peter's universe, after he's lost his shadow in the Darlings' nursery – but before he's been able to get it back.

*A fact which is being conveniently suspended for the author's sake, since given the time elapsed between _The Guardians_ and _Peter Pan,_ Nightlight's already saved Katherine and does, in fact, need to sleep . . . among other things.

**Which will honestly make me a little sad, if it's true.

 **Without further ado (brownie points for reading this) . . .**

"Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?"

"Nothing, precious . . . they are the eyes a mother leaves behind to guard her children."

J.M. Barrie, _Peter Pan_ , p. 26.

The stars were _angry_. They whispered of an ageless, dust-blest boy who was nothing but mischief, self-serving and heartless: he was an antithesis to the spectral lad's own goodness. This was one who, himself accompanied by a streak of light - a fairy, no less! - snuck up behind them and tried to blow them out. He had no reverence; he did not know that they were _souls_. The old ones winked, glassy-eyed, complacent, but the younger ones glared and bore through the void of space - the cloak of night - almost as bright as the Moon.

And they sang a song of regret. _We showed him the way, because we pitied him. We said 'Now, Peter!' – and here he is . . ._

Nightlight cupped one hand around the diamond dagger, letting his moonbeam's warmth seep through the crystalline facets, playing along his iridescent fingertips. The night was cold. Snow was beginning to cap the roofs below and find a few resting places along the barren tree-boughs. But Nightlight liked the cold. The Moon was brighter in wintertime; the snow paid the Man due homage.

 _Is you seeing the Small-One?_

His moonbeam's quiet melody pulled him from his thoughts; the distant, far-way, bittersweet memories of the Man in the Moon.

 _He is hurting badly – he is crying._

Nightlight's first impulse was the drop his gaze and scour the snow-caked ground. Nothing. No lost child, shivering in a shadow. No coatless street urchin – one of those who always made him ache as if the suffering were _his_. Just a couple, walking hand-in-hand – a man and a woman, finely dressed, crunch-crunching through the snow. The woman whispered something tersely about a boy she'd seen –

"No more of that _again_ , Mrs. Darling," the man replied around a weary sigh. Nightlight leaned over his cloud, curious despite himself and the moonbeam's insistent chime that the trouble lay _elsewhere_. "The nursery's quiet now. We've lit the night-lights and they're fast asleep. We'll be home before you know it."

A small, small smile graced the spectral boy's lips. What would these parents have to say if they knew that the _real_ nightlight watching over their little ones was not a weakling candle – or a lamp – but he? He, a thing of mist and light and courage and hope – he, who bore a spear tipped with a tear-diamond dagger and had at his side the most valiant moonbeam of them all?

 _Fear nots, Mother-Father_ , Nightlight thought. He always considered the parents almost a single entity. _Fear nots. I am here. I fear no shadow and I do not sleep. If you could be knowing – but you will never know –_

 _Nightlight boy!_

Rarely did the moonbeam address him thus, all sharp-edged glaring light, the dagger waxing sharp against his hand until it was almost like holding the Moon Child's tears again. He shuddered, disconcerted; he raised his head and turned –

Because, yes, someone _was_ crying –

A boy, not unlike himself: beautiful, clad in skeleton leaves and fine webs of berry juice; he was a thing wholly of flesh-and-blood – he smelled of sweet sweat and a baby's breath – even though he glittered, sometimes, with a smattering of dust. _Silver, the dust – not the dream-dust I remember . . ._

Around the leaf-crowned head fluttered a ball of light, not unlike his moonbeam, though to his moonbeam's tranquil glow she – Nightlight paused a moment, considering – yes, _she_ waxed as hot and bright as any star.

 _She is not dream-giving star-light,_ the moonbeam informed him gently. _I's not knowing what she –_

"Who's there, Tink?"

The boy's voice . . . high and clear and warm . . . but choked . . .

 _There's tears!_ Nightlight pursed his lips, startled at the drying tracks leaving snail-trails on the boy's softly-rounded cheeks. The eyes which met his own were dark and bright: they gleamed almost as strongly as the sudden flash of teeth when the boy clambered to his feet, mid-air. He was growling, an animal, and gnashing those little pearls –

 _He yet has his first-teeth . . . !_

Bells began to carry on the still night air, softer and sharper than the tolling of any campanile or church-tower. Nightlight felt his moonbeam shiver, as if hearing a language it once knew well but had so long ago forgotten that to hear it now was only sorrow.

But Nightlight remembered, too –

"You silly ass," the sun-bright-light was chiding, "gone and lost your shadow. Gone and lost your shadow and _he's_ what'll stop you getting it back. He guards the children in that nursery. He's better than their stupid night-lights."

 _But Nightlight is who and what I be . . ._

The boy's chest heaved; one hand hovered at his hip, where Nightlight could just catch the smooth pommel of a sword. Instinctively he tightened his grasp against the spear; his moonbeam flashed within the dagger, just as uncertain – and just as ready to protect his friend, his love –

 _But who's you?_ he added softly, raising the other hand until it caught the Moon's light, pooling it, holding it out in offering. _I am having no wish to fight you. You are_ fearing _. You are_ sad _. Why is it you needs these Small-Ones?_

"I just liked the stories," the boy answered slowly. "I just liked the stories . . ."

A surge of pain and hope tore through Nightlight's meager frame. _Are they stories as my Katherine wrote?_

Doubt clouded the perfect face; his patience, shorter than a lightning-flash, was rapidly waning thin.

 _Why is it you needs these Small-Ones?_ Patiently he asked again.

"Don't need _them_ ," the boy scoffed. "Need my shadow. Lost it."

He jerked an accusing arm towards the street, sweeping it up to the third-story window. "Their mother there stole it. Closed the window on me. On my shadow. Tore it _right_ off."

Those first-teeth of his gleamed fiercely as he grinned – almost proudly – as if showing off a piece of scab he'd pulled.

Nightlight, faintly disgusted, had never heard of this before; he'd often wondered, though, at these benevolent shades: it seemed that they acted, in their own way, as little guardians to their casters – but, shadows though they were, the thing called Pitch had nothing doing with them . . .

 _Are you hurting for the losing of your shadow?_

The boy laughed harshly, dancing in the air among a spray of silver dust. Only then, in his friend MiM's light, did Nightlight catch the scars – along his limbs, his cheeks –

 _He is knowing pain . . . ?_ his moonbeam wondered.

 _His hands are hard, like North's_ , Nightlight reasoned. _This one's games are rough. These are running-scars, through woods, or falling-scars. And he carries weapons . . . He is fighting someone . . ._

 _Who?_ His moonbeam flared, dancing sharply along the dagger's edge. _He is not a good boy, not like my Nightlight._

 _But he is not being like Pitch._

And then: _You was crying and fearing for your shadow, boy?_

"My _name's_ Peter Pan." Levelly, their gazes met, measuring and circling like dualists before first strike. "So _you're_ the nightlight, then? So you'll stop me?"

 _No. I . . ._ Nightlight bit his lip. _If you are meaning no harm to the childrens, if you are only wanting back your shadow . . ._

"And the stories! There's a little-mother with them who could tell me stories."

Nightlight's hand flashed out, ferocity taking hold of him; he'd seen too much of the world's madness and sickened cruelty to _ever_ let anyone speak of a child in that way. _She is being a_ girl! he seethed. _She is_ not _a mother. She will not be until she is a Tall-One. So I swear._

"You can't protect _all_ children," the boy named Peter smirked, as if reading the hidden underpinnings of Nightlight's thoughts. " 'So you swear' – but the world's gone big and there's enough darkness for ten worlds more. There's grown-ups that do things. And there's us. There's some of us as needs thinning out, you see?"

And suddenly Nightlight knew that the sword at Peter's hip had killed. And not just bad things – not just shadows –

He raised his head beseechingly, pouring out a silent stream of grief to his old friend. _MiM! Why is you letting him - ?_

 _He is not being from this world,_ his moonbeam whispered tersely. _He and his is not the same. There are being different rules._

 _If . . ._ Nightlight could hardly force the words; all he could think of was his Katherine – and below, sleeping peacefully beneath what the Tall-Ones called their night-lights, was the other girl – so much the same as she –

 _If you will not harm them, if you are seeking only your shadow, boy, and will promise then to leave . . ._

Peter jerked impatiently against the spectral boy's inexorable grasp – such a strange, strong thing for _light_ . . . "I can't do anything to them," he snapped. "They can't even come _with_ me unless they want to."

 _Where! Taking childrens - !?_

"To Neverland," he answered simply, and for the first time a true note of joy danced amidst the voice – until the face threw sharp shadows, angled lights, across Nightlight's eyes. Peter pulled against his grip again. "Now let me _go_. While the mother's still away."

 _My Nightlight boy . . ._

And it was futile, he then realized, this back-and-forth – if not tonight, some other night: this strange and savage boy would come again. _And he is coming first for stories, before he is mistaking, before losing his shadow . . ._ The thought settled uneasily in Nightlight's mind, some measure of redemption: dark things – nightmarish things – creatures like and sworn to Pitch were afraid of stories. _My Katherine proved that . . ._

With a shuddering breath, he trusted in the sleeping girl's goodness and strength, so much like his first, his only love's. His hand slid from Peter's arm.

The other boy of leaves and the little sun-light – so much like and un-like himself, his precious moonbeam – were sprung away –

Suddenly the Peter turned. "If it helps," he added over one shoulder, carelessly, as if taking it for granted as a comfort, "I go with the dead ones half-way, so they aren't scared."

 _But_ these _childrens will not be – !_

Too late: the sealed window latch was broken: the boy snuck in . . .

 _MiM – moonbeam-mine – have I done wrong? Have I been failing - ?_ There was nothing doing except wallowing in fear or swallowing the consequences –

And perched against another windowsill, leaving not a trace in the gathering of snow, he could only watch, wide-eyed, heart thumping out an irregular tattoo, as the Peter-boy and his crude little light named Tink woke up the girl – the girl so reminiscent of his long-gone Katherine that it _hurt_ –

He watched with growing wonder as she pitied him and sewed his shadow on, although he rapidly grew worried and was smugly pleased to see the Tink stop the pair of them from kissing.

 _They are too young, they are not-knowing what the kissing is._

Quietly he thanked the Tink, although his moonbeam whistled a disconsolate song: _She is being_ jealous _, the thing called Tink._

 _But she is protecting the Small-One, I am thinking,_ Nightlight mused. _And she is protecting Peter-boy as well. They are wild. They will make the_ childrens _wild . . ._

 _But childrens_ always _have been, always will._ His moonbeam glinted once, a flash against his eye.

Nightlight swooped up from the windowsill, heart unexpectedly heavy with this encounter with a world he was more and more loathe to understand. It had been simpler, even in the days of Pitch . . .

His moonbeam flickered out from within the diamond dagger, rising up to flash between the same stars as Peter bothered, dropping down again to play along Nightlight's armor and spindled limbs. The night was cold – but the snow felt good against his face – his own skin, which had known scars as Peter's, gleaned in battles with the Nightmare King –

When he came back to the nursery, finally – sometime later – time never having much stock in his or his moonbeam's mind – it was to find a scene of heartbreak. The birds were flown: the children gone! Willingly, it must have been – his Katherine – no, the _other_ girl – Wendy? Yes, he'd heard that name – would never have left on her own if that boy's savagery and guile were not tempered with some strain of goodness . . .

But there – _there_ sat the poor, poor mother, weeping in the dark: she'd not bothered to even light the night-lights for herself . . .

 _Tall-Ones is yet needing little night-lights_ , the spectral boy reasoned gently. _They is having nightmares, too – they is yet fearing the dark. In losing hope, they is becoming much like Pitch's Darklings . . ._

 _Mother –_

It was strange, considering the mother by herself – but here she was –

 _Mother – Darling-Mother –_

He tapped once at the windowpane, hands leaving trails of moonlight, trails of ice –

The woman startled, staring, blinking through her tears to see a boy . . . but not _the_ boy . . . This one was all silver light and kindness . . . a shy, shy smile dancing at his lips . . . Like the other boy he, too, held a weapon – she abhorred the thought of children holding weapons, even in pretend – though his was _bright_ –

Reverently she opened the window, watching as he stepped in lightly. _He_ was not afraid. He did not try to hide, he did not gnash his teeth – though from his smile she saw that he, too, still had all his baby teeth . . .

"The _other_ boy . . ." she whispered, sinking back into her chair. "I see him in the faces of women who have no children . . ."

It seemed strange, to admit it thus, but that's just whom she felt like: that her own children could abandon her, even for him . . .

 _You's leaving little night-lights for your Small-Ones, Darling-Mother_ , Nightlight whispered, surprised that she could hear him. She must be yet like a child, in some way . . . He stepped closer, _closer_ , bathing her tear-streaked face in that otherworldly glow. His tongue danced against his teeth, his sharp first-teeth, and he licked his wind-chapped lips. Carefully he leaned his spear against a wall, his moonbeam dancing in the dagger, singing an old, old, song only Nightlight knew.

He sat on one of the armrests of the rocking chair, reaching out to touch her cheek – and then to wrap his arms around her shoulders. Unashamed, overwrought at her children's absence, _needing_ to hold _something_ , she gathered the spindle-limbed and moon-clad spectral boy into her arms.

He laid his fingertips against her lips, just _there_ – the right-hand corner of her mouth where he knew there was a kiss, much like a Good-Night Kiss: a special thing that not even the Wendy-girl could catch.

 _You's leaving little night-lights for your childrens . . ._

"But now _you_ are needing _me_ ," he said, with such softness that Mrs. Darling couldn't help but weep again – even as he touched the most tender place above her eyes – even as she began to fall asleep – "and do not be fearing, Darling-Mother: be having sweet-dreams and fear none, for I will stay."


End file.
